


distant hills shudder

by Mizzy



Category: Age of X (Marvel) - Fandom, Age of X Universe, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 11326
Genre: Age of X (Marvel), Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dark, Death, Dystopia, Earth-11326, M/M, Steel Corpse, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 12:58:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18851548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: If they both closed their eyes, and if Tony was on the good painkillers, Steve could press his mouth to that small expanse of skin, and they could pretend for a few seconds that everything was fine.(Age of X Universe fic)





	distant hills shudder

**Author's Note:**

> For the Cap_IM bingo, prompt: "hand". This takes place in Earth-11326, covered in the double issue "Age of X Universe" (2011); a multiverse Earth where without the X-Men, mutants are hated and hunted. Tony is fused into his armor by a virus which is eating him alive, and he calls himself "Steel Corpse". I stole this universe for that brief mention of a name once upon a time for a much happier fic than this.

  


They never kissed in the way lovers should, not even once, and then Tony's face melted off too much to manage it.

Even after the virus hit Tony, Steve was still able to kiss the last part of Tony's face, at least for the first hundred days of their relationship. It was a soft and small expanse of cheek under Tony's left eye, and if they both closed their eyes, and if Tony was on the good painkillers, Steve could press his mouth to that small expanse of skin, and they could pretend for a few seconds that everything was fine. That the mutants weren't a problem, and they got to be whole together in a bright, safe world. That they'd figured out their shit much earlier.

Instead, they'd denied their feelings until the whole world had gone to hell, and then it was too late for normal. It wasn't too late for _something_ , though. It was easier to push past all the reasons not to reach for someone when being awake was the nightmare, when sleep was the only respite from constant terror. Steve got to hold Tony now, every night, and hide his face in the metal expanse of Tony's back when the days got too difficult. The days were always too difficult.

The last island of Tony's smooth skin shriveled away four hundred days ago, and Tony's eyelids withered, so shutting his eyes swiftly became a problem. Now Tony kept his faceplate down if a moment glanced towards too intimate, and Steve understood. He still tried his best to press a kiss to the faceplate when no one was looking, smirking when the modulator beeped, " _ERROR, INPUT PARAMETERS UNSPECIFIED_ " and Tony's broken voice croaked an insult. It never stopped Tony from crawling into his bed every night, as they held each other in a mockery of what they could have had, if they were smarter. If the world was fairer.

But they weren't. And it wasn't.

 

 

 

Tony jerked him off sometimes, always with his left hand, and if Steve didn't say anything, Tony would let Steve watch his face throughout, the faceplate lifted, even though Tony didn't understand how Steve could enjoy that. Tony's face was sunken and hollowed, wrinkled and rotting; his teeth were a constant macabre grin and his right eyelids peeled back more often than they worked. Steve couldn't say out loud why he could happily look and look and _look_ , past the damage to the man beneath, because Tony would flee. Kindness was too much for Tony in a world where Tony's suit was eating him alive. Steve looked and looked and _looked_  because it _was_  Tony. Even though he was falling apart and broken and being eaten alive by his own suit, he was still Tony, still the only good thing left in this world. 

Tony said the left-hand thing was a dominance issue, the virus having caused his suit to eat more of his right arm muscles, and maybe that was right, but Steve remembered a mission, long before the world became hell, when Tony jerked him off afterwards in the quinjet, still wearing the suit, back when they were both whole and the world wasn't broken, and Tony watched him with bright alive eyes, working Steve with his left hand because that was the one still in the gauntlet, and Steve came over the bright red metal, and they didn't kiss, because they were idiots, and it had been part of a fight, anyway, over how dangerous the mutants were, and Tony had been off gallivanting with the Illuminati, trying to fix things with _them_ , and he should have been working with _Steve_  and--

It was an old argument. It was moot now. But sometimes, when Tony did use that hand to jerk him off, Tony's right eye would swivel in its socket, that movement distended because of his rotting skin, and they would both remember, and Steve would come quietly over the bright red metal all over again.

 

 

 

On the last day--their last day?--Steve woke up alone, even though Steel Corpse had been curled up along his back before he fell asleep. Steve hated that name. Tony insisted on using it, but Steve still called him Iron Man as much as he could, to remind Tony of who he really was, the virus be damned. Steel Corpse might have been the joke of being a walking dead man or a futurist's truest prediction of his own fate, and Steve hated both those options. 

There was no sign Tony had been in his room at all, save a smear of blood on the pillows. Worried about that, Steve rose, performed minimal ablutions, and then he went to find Tony. Tony was standing in the common area, his faceplate up as he stared out of the window at the unpleasant view. What used to be Chicago was nothing but smoking ruins and buildings that rose up like a shattered, exposed rib cage. Steve wanted to offer that Tony could share the couch with him, but then he remembered with a pang that one of Tony's knees had been obliterated last month, the suit chowing down indiscriminately on whatever it wanted to take from him. Standing was probably the most Tony could manage now.

" _SITUATION: 8AM interaction, SALUTATION: good morning_ ," the suit trilled. "I don't think it's good," Tony's voice followed, his eyes swiveling in Steve's direction. His mouth was a lopsided, eternal grin. Another tooth was missing. It probably explained the smear of blood on Steve's sheets.

Tony was in screaming pain now, every moment of every day, so Steve didn't blame him whenever the suit's AI took over speaking for him, more and more often, but at the same time Steve was selfishly happy whenever he did hear Tony's real voice scraping through. Tony was slipping away, day by day. A slow death. Steve would selfishly take every second he could. Tony's voice was cracked and broken, any time he did speak. The suit was punching through into his vocal cords, swallowing up the membranous tissue. It wouldn't be long until it was only the suit's voice left.

" _QUERY: Facial recognition, running_ ," the suit beeped, and then, Tony croaked, "Whatcha looking at? My handsome face, right?"

Twelve real words now before breakfast. It was a banner day.

"I'll make us some smoothies," Steve said, because if he said the truth ("you, always you") Tony would clam up and put the faceplate down and that would be it for the day.

 

 

  
The mission seemed to be going okay before it went to shit. That seemed to be a recurring theme for their lives. Steve's head was spinning at Mystique's last words. He couldn't bear the unmistakable innocence of the mutant children staring at him, in full knowledge he was sent to be their executioner.

The mistake was easy to figure out afterward: the words he chose.

"Tony, open a line to the Castle," Steve commanded. "Tell him we quit."

Quit was the magic word.

"Th-that's uh-- Oh crap," Tony responded, and it was in his own glass-shard, crushed debris voice, and Steve thought for a beautiful moment that he was just reacting to their new future together, on the run, but together--

" _NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE, OVERRIDE_ ," the suit chirped, and Steve's world fell apart again as the suit activated by itself, and it started to take control of the Iron Man armor. Of the Steel Corpse. Of Tony. 

Tony had already been slipping away, piece by piece, day by day, the suit taking over a little more every week, but this was too soon. It was too soon. There was still a lot of Tony left. There was still so much of him left.

"Steve. No human should be controlled," Tony croaked, in his own voice, and Steve's heart broke clean in two.

Steve still tried for the impossible, because he was Captain America, and impossible was what they did every day. "How do I help y--"

But Tony didn't let him get that far. "Not me, help _them_."

Steve has been with Tony long enough to know what he was asking, and he was angry, for a blistering second, because how could Tony ask that of him? How could he ask Steve to take this hell and make it worse?

Tony's left hand was up and raised, the repulsor charging up, the suit taking him over almost completely, except for that scrap of voice and the terror in his eyes. This action wasn't his choice, and Tony would never forgive him if he didn't do this. They'd talked about death, a lot. Both of them said the same thing. _If I die, please let it be for something._

If Steve let Tony's armor continue, Tony would take the blame for killing those children, as surely as if he'd shot the blast himself, not the damn suit overriding him. He was dead either way.

Steve lifted the gun.

He'd never told Tony he loved him.

He hoped as Tony felt the bullet enter his brain that Tony would understand that's what he meant.

 

 

 

Tony's hand was in his.

Steve cradled it in his fingers. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was still attached to the rest of Tony's body.

He couldn't close his eyes. Legacy would close his eyes for him, minutes later, as she took his memories from him. Steve could feel them leeching into her as he died. His last thought was how many of those memories would be of Tony. A lot, he was sure.


End file.
